The Metro Council is expected to hold off on sanctions against Troutdale after that city's council moved closer to complying with regional habitat preservation rules.
The regional council is scheduled to vote on an enforcement action against Troutdale at its April 12 meeting, but Metro chief operating officer Martha Bennett recommended the council postpone that agenda item until June.
At the Metro Council's April 5 meeting, Bennett said the Troutdale City Council has agreed to send a draft proposal for habitat preservation to state regulators for review. After a month, the city council can vote on whether to accept the new regulations.
Metro's habitat preservation rules are spelled out in Title 13 of its Urban Growth Management Functional Plan, regulations that have been accepted by most cities in the region. But some Troutdale property owners were worried about possible restrictions on developing their properties, and the city was concerned the regulations would make it cumbersome-to-impossible to develop some park areas.
After years of stalled negotiations, the Metro Council in February signaled its intention to sanction Troutdale. That quickly led to higher-level meetings with Metro staff and Troutdale officials, where many concerns were ironed out, said Troutdale City Councilor Doug Daoust.
"That meeting (March 1) with Metro staff, that helped clarify a few things," Daoust said Monday. "I think there were some misunderstandings of what we could and couldn't do on some of our own public land."
The Title 13 regulations say that development in sensitive habitat areas, particularly around wetlands and streams, has to be mitigated.
Daoust said some confusion was caused by Troutdale staffers trying to put some housekeeping measures – code clean-ups – into the Title 13 ordinance.
"That complicated and confused things quite a bit," he said. "We just got to the point where we said 'Take it all out of there and let's get down to what the basic Title 13 requirements are.'"